Devon Barker – Top Woman Surfer at the Costa Rica World Championships

Devon Barker from McCall, Idaho, won the Women’s International Class Surf Championship at the Pura Vida World Surf Kayak Championships in Jaco, Costa Rica, in October.

Barker shared her experience via e-mail, which covers several days of the competition:

Dear Friends,I had a great comp in finals with two rides with steep green wave take offs and tricks on both. One trick was a cartwheel way on the outside break on a super fast wave in a 9 foot boat. The other was a drop on to another wave I connected with. About a three foot drop! From there I am not sure what other wave was my best, maybe the one I did a tail slash and stayed in a back surf ripping down the line. Backwards in the ocean add a lot of excitement to surfing. Three waves count in your score. I am pretty confident I moved up but … we do not find out until the awards ceremony tomorrow at 4 pm. I just cannot wait!

In the meantime I am going to go out and surf my new kayaks donated to me from James Hawker. One is white with purple spalshes and the other is orange with a white line around it. James’s boats are called Future Kayaks.

Two more hours to wait! It is 11:11 and I just arrived in San Jose after my transfer from Jaco. 4 pm finally came and I can tell you WC does not stand for Water Closet this time; it stand for World Champion. I was sitting with Wayne and Jessica as they announced 4th, 3rd, and when they announced 2nd Wayne turned to me and said, “You were in IC right?” At the same time Jessica was jumping up and down with her camera as they announced Devon Barker from the USA!

The Basque team threw me in the pool after the photo of us here. The party was perfect. USA West won the team event and USA East was third. There were tons of amazing tricks from all the surfers. I am very impressed with kayak surfing in the ocean.

Devon Barker is a two-time national champion freestyle kayaker and spreads the word back at home in Idaho with her D.A.R.E. to Kayak program for 9- to 13-year-olds. She encourages them to go beyond saying No to drugs and forward into saying Yes to something they love.Results